


Loyalty Binds Me

by queenofthorns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthorns/pseuds/queenofthorns
Summary: Jaime is gone, but Brienne must find him to avert a slaughter. Set immediately after 8.04.





	Loyalty Binds Me

**_Pod_ **

One of the decided advantages of Pod’s newfound friendship with Alayne, the daughter of Winterfell’s baker, is that if he times his entrance right, he gets the lemon cakes that are deemed too misshapen or browned around the edges for the lords and ladies of the high table.  Alayne’s father Rickard is a master of his art, and Pod has learned that it’s well-worth the hardship of leaving his nice warm bed when Alayne does, to follow her down to the kitchens and help her pull the long paddles from the ovens.

Pod’s headed back to M’lady’s rooms, licking the last crumbs from his fingers, when one of the Maesters, the young one with the red-brown hair, whose name Pod can never remember, stops him on the stairs.

“There’s a message for Jaime Lannister,” the Maester says. “From his brother. Will you take it? I … didn’t want to disturb them… Him …”

Pod nods, blushing, and remembers how he went looking for M’lady in the stables one morning, and found her backed up against a stall, with her breeches down and Ser Jaime on his knees before her with his golden head between her legs. Pod slunk out, and then made sure to crash into a couple of doors and set the horses whinnying before he went back inside, ignoring M’lady's flushed cheeks and Ser Jaime’s muttered comment: “Timing, Podrick, is everything.”

The door to their room is ajar, the furs on the bed disheveled, and most surprising of all, the fire has died down to a few glowing embers. This is most unlike either Ser Brienne or Ser Jaime, who laments that the North is fit only for direwolves and ice bears, though he always smiles fondly at M’lady when he says it.

Perhaps they’ve gone to the practice yard for a morning sparring session. Ser Jaime always reminds M’lady that he’s survived a battle with the Dothraki _and_ with the armies of the dead when she drags him out into the freezing morning to fight with their heavy practice swords. “You were lucky,” M’lady always replies. “Work harder so you don’t have to _be_ lucky.” Pod often goes with them, as much for the sheer pleasure of watching Ser Jaime make M’lady laugh, as any desire to learn to fight with his off-hand. There is a glow about M’lady’s pale face nowadays, as though she is lit from within.

But the practice yard is empty too. The armies of Queen Danaerys and Jon Snow have marched south, and most of those left in Winterfell were never warriors in the first place, and are glad to set down their swords and use their axes to rebuild. Pod looks around, catching the faint sound of grunts, curses, and a strange thumping; he picks his way through the morass of melting slush and mud to the passageway where the archers keep their practice dummies.

“Fuck…” A straw head goes flying “…”loyalty.” Another dummy’s straw entrails spill onto the floor. “Fuck … fuck … fuck…” Straw swirls around Ser Brienne as another three dummies are destroyed.

“M’lady?” Pod can’t keep the shock from his voice.

“What is it, Pod?” she asks, her back still to him.

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing … only the Maester gave me a message for Ser Jaime from his brother. And I thought …”

“Ser Jaime is gone.” M’lady turns to face Pod. Her eyelids are raw and swollen, and bits of straw stick to her matted hair and sweaty neck. “He left before dawn.”

“Oh,” Pod says, and then, before he can stop himself, “where did he go?”

“To King’s Landing,” she says dully. “To his sister.”

“Oh,” Pod says again. That can’t be right. Since he’s come to Winterfell, Ser Jaime has scarcely left M’lady’s side, and he looks at her like she’s the only light in the world. But there is no light in Lady Brienne’s eyes today, and no sign of Ser Jaime. Still, Pod tries. “M’lady … there must be some explanation. He loves you. We can all see it.”

Her lips twist in a bitter smile. “Perhaps he does,” she says. “But not enough to stay with me.”

Pod looks down at the floor, hoping to find some words of comfort or assurance there if he stares hard enough, but all he sees are clumps of straw. There is only one man who can comfort Lady Brienne, and he is the author of her sorrow.

“Give it to me,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Um … what?” Pod asks.

“The message. It must be important.”

***

 

**_Sansa_ **

There is mud _everywhere_ in Winterfell. The courtyard is a brown sea, and the pale rushes Sansa has strewn on the floor of the great hall scarcely last an hour before they are a uniform brown. Sansa’s skirts and boots are caked with the stuff, and sometimes it seems to her that even the food at her table tastes of mud. In songs, spring brings flowers, jonquils, and bluebells, and heartease, but no one ever mentions the mud. Her mother would have known how to keep Winterfell clean, she thinks with a pang. But Sansa has other things to worry about, such as how to keep the North, and all its mud, from under the sharp edges of the Iron Throne.

Jon could have done it. He could have reached his hand to take the throne, and given the North its freedom. Instead, he bent the knee, for love or lust, to the Dragon Queen, who will not give an inch of any part of what she considers hers. That bitch Cersei Lannister was right about one thing: men let the worm between their legs do half their thinking for them. Take Jaime Lannister, for instance, come to Winterfell, into the arms of his bitterest enemies, alone, for the sake of Brienne of Tarth. Sansa was every bit as ready as Daenerys Targaryen to spike the Kingslayer’s head above Winterfell’s walls, until Brienne spoke for him and with every word, shouted out that he was hers. Sansa smiles. She still doesn’t care for the Kingslayer, but he makes Brienne happy, and for that he’s welcome to stay in Winterfell, a lion collared and tamed.

There’s a peremptory knock, Sansa’s door swings open, and Brienne strides in, leaving a trail of muddy bootprints. “What does this mean?” she asks, thrusting a small scroll at Sansa.

Brienne’s abandonment of her usual grave good manners shocks Sansa, and she nearly drops the parchment. It’s addressed to Jaime Lannister, and bears a seal, now broken, that Sansa recognizes. What message does the Hand of Queen Daenerys have for his brother, the killer of Queen Daenerys’s father, and now the unwelcome guest of House Stark of Winterfell?

Tyrion’s message was written in great haste, for the quill has pierced the parchment in places, and ink blots adorn the bottom, but it is still perfectly legible. “Jaime,” Sansa reads, “Cersei killed Missandei. Both Queens will burn the city. There is another way. Ask Sansa Stark and come at once. There are men loyal to you; bring them.”

Sansa’s conversation with Tyrion is bearing fruit already. In King’s Landing, Tyrion had spoken often of his golden brother, whom the Lannister bannermen would follow to into the Seven Hells. How much was Tyrion’s exaggeration, and how much the truth remains to be seen, but if the men of the Westerlands are anything like the men of the North, they’d far rather follow their own lord than some upstart Greyjoy Cersei has raised up beside her. And if Jaime Lannister can be persuaded to win even half of the Lannister armies to Jon’s cause, against Cersei  _and_ Daenerys, then King Aegon Targaryen might well rule six kingdoms from the Iron Throne, and the North might be forever free. 

“Where is Ser Jaime?” Sansa asks. “He should hear this too.”

“He left,” Brienne replies, and now Sansa notices that her nose is pink around the edges, and her face is puffy, as though Brienne has been weeping, as strange as that seems to Sansa.

“When?” Sansa asks. “After he got this message?” Perhaps he went straight to his brother for an explanation, which, considering the feelings the Mother of Dragons ( _just one now)_ harbors against Cersei, might just prove fatal for both Ser Jaime and Sansa's plans to win him to Jon's side.

Brienne shakes her head. “Before dawn,” she says. “He was riding for King’s Landing. I begged him to stay, for me. But he did not.”

The pain in those sparse words makes Sansa momentarily regret not letting Daenerys Targaryen have the Kingslayer’s head.

“He went back for Cersei?” Sansa asks. “To betray our weakness?” 

Brienne’s eyes widen as though Sansa has hit her. She shakes her head. “No, I trust him; he could have helped her by staying in the South and never telling us about the Golden Company. Anyway, Cersei and Euron know our weaknesses now far better than Jaime does.”

“If he did not go to help her, why did he go?”

“He is ... he is still bound to his sister. He went to die with her,” Brienne says, her voice breaking. “When the city burns.”

The Kingslayer must _not_ die just yet, for Sansa has other plans for him. Tyrion and Brienne together might sway him from his purpose; it is, without doubt, worth the gamble. “What if I told you that Ser Jaime could stop the city from burning? That no one has to die, least of all Ser Jaime?” Cersei though, Cersei _will_ have to die. Even now, even after all the other things she’s been through, Sansa still dreams of the bloody sword and her father’s head, a feast for crows.

“How?” Brienne asks, eager now. “Tell me.”


End file.
